by Jeff Maisey | May 21, 2016 | News & Views, Robotham
By Tom Robotham When I was 15, in 1971, I thought there was a good possibility that I wouldn’t live to see my 19th birthday. The Vietnam War seemed to have no end in sight, and many of the older kids in my neighborhood had already been drafted. My only hope for...
by Jeff Maisey | Apr 16, 2016 | News & Views, Robotham
By Tom Robotham Last month The Post and Courier, a newspaper in Charleston, SC, ran a story about a professor at the College of Charleston who was suspended because his syllabus was “gravely deficient.” The story caught my attention because the dispute, to my mind,...
by Jeff Maisey | Mar 15, 2016 | News, News & Views, Robotham
BY TOM ROBOTHAM I don’t know what it means and I don’t care because it’s Shakespeare and it’s like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words. ― Frank McCourt. First off, I must make a confession: There was a time when I hated...
by Jeff Maisey | Mar 15, 2016 | News & Views, Robotham
There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. ~ Margaret Fuller, Woman in the 19th Century. Some years ago, while delivering a lecture on the women’s movement to one of my classes at Old Dominion University, I paused to ask my students...
by Jeff Maisey | Feb 15, 2016 | Classical, News, News & Views, Robotham
By Tom Robotham Dear JoAnn, It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since you and I put down roots in Hampton Roads. That’s right—I don’t know whether you remember this, but you and I both moved to Norfolk in 1991. The timing was fortuitous. When I moved here...
by Jeff Maisey | Feb 15, 2016 | News & Views, Robotham
By Tom Robotham On January 22, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman published a column titled “How Change Happens.” In essence, he argued that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are naïvely idealistic. “While idealism is fine and essential,” he wrote, “it’s not...
